This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

5 strategies for eating well while on vacation

Registered dietician Zannat Reza shares her tips for balanced eating on the road.

After consulting with her kids, Zannat Reza packed blueberries, grapes, homemade muffings and crackers to snack on during their flight. (Zannat Reza photo)

Even on vacation, parents can turn to local grocery stores to find healthy meal and snack options. (dreamstime)

By Zannat RezaSpecial to the Star

Mon., July 15, 2013

“We went to Starbucks and had a cookie. Daddy had a coffee,” my 9-year-old announced after I asked about her afternoon.

Sigh. Some days I wish I’d married another dietitian.

It was day five of our two-week holiday to the west coast to visit Vancouver, Seattle, Victoria and Tofino. My husband, Faruq, and I had decided to build a vacation around my work trip, and while I was attending afternoon conference sessions in Victoria, B.C., he and the children — our son is 6 and our daughter is 9 — were left to fend for themselves.

Being on vacation can be an exciting adventure, but dining on the road can sabotage your best laid plans to eat well. Refined carbohydrates and junk — not just cookies, but fries and chips too — are lurking everywhere. Finding nutritious options can turn into a treasure hunt, but we’d settled on a goal: eat healthy food 80 per cent of the time. That still allowed room for treats.

Article Continued Below

Now I like cookies as much as the next person, but when I found out the kids had eaten only a cookie during four hours of roaming around, I had a problem. I know there are healthier options at Starbucks. I’ve even spotted fruit there. I promptly dispatched my husband to buy fruit from a small grocery store a 20-minute walk away, then I headed back to the hotel with two tired and hungry kids.

Thankfully, there weren’t too many of those episodes during out trip.

Armed with a few simple strategies, we balanced healthy eats with tasty treats. Here’s how:

Pack snacks to go

A few days before our trip, I brainstormed snack ideas with the kids to cover our flight to Vancouver and the first leg of our trip. They chose blueberries, grapes, homemade muffins, whole grain crackers and cereal. I found out the hard way that ice packs don’t pass airport security’s no-gel rule. Good thing I’d packed the jar of peanut butter in the suitcase.

Make friends with a fridge

The fridge was the star appliance when we rented apartment-style suites in Tofino and Vancouver. This allowed us to stock up on yogurt, cheese, fruit, salads and other perishables. We also froze juice boxes as makeshift ice packs. At the conference hotel in Victoria, I requested a bar fridge, so hotel staff emptied out the mini bar.

Map out grocery stores

I love Google maps. I scoped out each neighbourhood where we’d be staying and pinpointed nearby grocery stores. Even the co-op at Tofino had a decent selection, perfect for making a pizza and salad for dinner. Downtown Victoria didn’t have a good grocery store, but the large Shoppers Drug Mart was a good place to get dairy products and bread. We hit the jackpot in our Vancouver neighbourhood, with both a Safeway and Whole Foods within a block of each other. On a cold, rainy Vancouver evening we picked up tomato soup, a whole grain baguette, cheese and sweet B.C. strawberries for dinner.

Scout out menus

I rarely check restaurant menus online when we’re in Toronto. Dining out once or twice a month is a treat for us. But eating out every day is a whole other game. Restaurants usually dumb down kids’ meals with fries, fries and more fries. But many west coast establishments offer healthier substitutions for fries, including veggies and dip or seasonal fruit. I’m no militant dietitian, so I ordered one kids’ meal with fries, and the other with veggies — the kids split both. We also asked for milk instead of pop. Cora’s in Victoria offered tons of fruit with brunch, but vegetables were scarce in our sushi and Tibetan meals. That’s when having pears and other fruit waiting for us at the hotel came in handy. Places without kids’ menus are also a good option, allowing us to share meals or order healthier appetizers.

Enjoy some treats

While we managed to eat well for most of the trip, I confess we enjoyed our fair share of ice cream, cookies and croissants. I was also more lenient about letting the kids have 100 per cent fruit juice and V8 more often than usual, although fruit and whole vegetables are better options.

After two weeks on the road, and eating out more than we’re used to, I was looking forward to enjoying some home-cooked meals. And while it would sometimes make my life easier to have a dietitian husband, the truth is he’s a keeper. After all, he trekked out to a laundromat twice during out vacation — that’s not my idea of fun.

Zannat Reza is a registered dietitian with 16 years of experience specializing in food and nutrition communications. Follow her on Twitter @food4happiness

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com